Joseph-Émile Baeteman (September 29, 1880 – 1938) was a French missionary and religious writer. He wrote a dictionary of Amharic (Dictionnaire amarigna-français) that was a pioneer work and became standard for the study of that language.Joseph Baeteman was born in 1880 in Corbigny, Nièvre. In 1892 he received his missionary education in Troyes and Paris, where he joined the Lazarists. In 1905 he went to Ethiopia for teaching, but he returned to France during World War I, in which he served at the front. In 1919 he returned to Ethiopia, to Gəwala. Around 1920 he founded the Lazarist mission of Mändida, which he left in 1929 due to illness. He then returned to France and wrote several spiritual writings.[1]